Southern University was founded in New Orleans in 1880 and moved out of the city in 1914 due to logistical concerns as well as pressure from its White neighbors.

On September 21, 1959, SUNO opened its doors on a 17-acre site located in historic Pontchartrain Park, a subdivision of primarily African American single-family residences in eastern New Orleans.

[citation needed] Established as an open community of learners, classes began with 158 freshmen, one building and a faculty of fifteen.

Bashful wrote, "In August, 1959, Dr. F. G. Clark, then President of Southern University at Baton Rouge, presented my name to the Louisiana State Board of Education as Dean of the projected New Orleans Campus.

The one building under construction was hardly near completion; the faculty had been only partially recruited; no office space was then available on campus; and it was expected that classes would begin sometime in September.

In January 1964 Virginia Cox Welch, a white high school teacher, filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against the Louisiana State Board of Education.

The court order, which was handed down by federal judges as an out-of-court settlement between the State of Louisiana and the Justice Department over the issue of segregation, allowed SUNO to add nine academic programs and also to receive funds to upgrade campus facilities.

Guided by the institution's first dean, Millie McClelland Charles, the School of Social Work blossomed into one of the most recognized programs in the South.

The sciences garnered a wealth of attention in the early 2000s (decade) when SUNO aggressively implemented components of the Program for Excellence in Mathematics and Computer Technology (PESMaCT) as well as the Louisiana Alliance for Minority Participation (LAMP).

Flood waters grew to as high as eleven feet in the buildings, causing the school's physical plant to require replacement.

Operations as well as classes were conducted at Southern University until a temporary campus was assembled at 6801 Press Drive on land that SUNO owned but had not utilized extensively.

To the surprise of many, SUNO's enrollment regained more than 2,000 including online students when the university returned to grounds near the Park Campus in the spring of 2006.

By request of the Louisiana Board of Regents, the university added undergraduate degrees in Public Administration, Health Information Systems and Child Development & Family Studies.

The university occupied several buildings on its Park Campus since Katrina, and began construction on the first residence halls in the history of the institution, which opened in January 2010.

On August 17, 2009, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano announced that FEMA would provide more than $32 million in additional funding to rebuild four educational buildings at SUNO.

Jindal's proposal to recommend the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems' "Alternative B" plan to "include a comprehensive community college and a new multi-unit University of Greater New Orleans.

Within that same vote, the Board recommended including the Southern University System's proposal "A Focused Learning Approach to Strengthen the Role of Public Higher Education in Building a Greater New Orleans: The Honoré Center for Undergraduate Student Achievement" named for Southern University graduate and post-Hurricane Katrina hero Gen. Russell Honoré.

[4] Several months later, the New Orleans campus of the university also announced plans to suspend all intercollegiate athletic programs at the end of the 2019–2020 academic year.